


your body told me in a dream...

by calcifowl



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Endgame Alternate Ending, F/F, Fix-It, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-04 20:18:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20476886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calcifowl/pseuds/calcifowl
Summary: ...it’s never been afraid of anything.When the battle ends her father is dead, and so are all his armies. But her sister isn’t, not anymore.





	your body told me in a dream...

When the battle ends her father is dead, and so are all his armies. But her sister isn’t, not anymore. She’s back—not back from the dead, but back from 2014, so much of their shared story not lived and only existing in Nebula’s memory. Instead now they have something they’ve never had before: they have time. _This is fine_, Nebula thinks. She has killed herself bringing Gamora back and she would do it again if she had to; would watch herself die over and over again, tears sliding down her face and acceptance in her eyes, if it meant having her sister standing beside her once again. If this is the price she has to pay for her sins she will gladly do so. 

When the battle ends, in some other universe, Gamora runs and Nebula lets her, the unspoken promise that they will meet again hanging between them, an unseen force tethering them together, the reassurance that their paths will always keep crossing. But in this universe Gamora sees the new (or so she tells herself, but isn’t it old? Isn’t that what she used to see there _before_?) emotion in her sister’s eyes, and she stays.

Nebula thinks about the first time she saw her sister, so small and innocent and afraid but still strong and defiant, with a spark in her eyes that signalled the warrior she might become; she thinks about the countless times they consoled each other, in the darkness, under the covers, out of sight of their other siblings; she thinks about later, about her desperate _want _for a sister who understood her, who wouldn’t best her at every chance she got; she thinks about Gamora offering her hand to help time and time again and sees the gesture for what it was, an attempt to make _her _understand, to abandon their father’s ways. She thinks about how different things could have been if she’d taken that hand any of those times. She thinks about how, this time, everything will be better. She will be better.

Gamora thinks about her sister, small and scared and in her arms; she thinks about Nebula having to go through painful modifications every time she bested her in battle, about having to watch her get dragged away and not being able to do anything about it; she thinks about her sister stopping being her sister, the epithet becoming something cruel and dirty and mocking in Nebula’s lips; she thinks about the part of her that always kept offering her hand to Nebula hoping one day she would take it. She thinks about seeing that playing from Nebula’s memories, about the lump in her throat when she realises she has missed her chance to live that moment. But more than anything else she thinks about the wet shine on her sister’s eyes, about not letting her down. She won’t run away without her, not this time.

Maybe in another universe Gamora is on the run and trying to collect her thoughts and feelings, to accept her jump through time and all that came with it, Nebula following her with their rag-tag group of friends; but in this one Gamora encloses Nebula with her arms and holds onto her until long after she stops crying. In this universe they decide that whatever the stars may have in store for them they will face it together, and later, when Nebula has calmed down, Gamora tentatively places a soft kiss on her mouth, their lips barely brushing. In this universe, that night, they sleep huddled together under the covers like they did so many nights in their childhood; only this time neither of them is afraid, neither of them holds back, and the touches and kisses of the only sister they ever loved follow each other through the sunset and well into the darkness of the night. In the morning they will wake up and know that they’re finally where they belong, that they have found their home; that it’s always been there next to them, and they only had to reach out to each other to find it. 

**Author's Note:**

> never thought i'd write anything mcu related but here we are (or: when a movie angers you so much and makes your wlw heart desperately long for your daughters to get the (bittersweet) happiness they deserve so hard that you write for a new <s>and scary</s> fandom)
> 
> title from richard siken's [detail of the woods](https://poets.org/poem/detail-woods).


End file.
